30 Minutes
by redstarsarc
Summary: Thirty minutes is a long time to fall, plenty of time to think. From that bit in Thor Ragnarok, you know the one.


**I think we all want to know about that time Loki fell for thirty minutes. Here's one interpretation, anyway.**

* * *

Loki supposed it was too much to ask that Thor stay away from Asgard forever. That he was never found out.

But it sure had been glorious while it lasted.

And to make matters worse, Thor had forced him to come back to Earth of all places in order to retrieve Odin which would probably have ended in a stern talking to, maybe even the prison cell again, if the Midgardians hadn't decided to tear Shady Acres Care Home to the ground.

"I swear I left him right here." He didn't care for Odin, but this was inconvenient. He could already feel his chest bruising from getting pinned by Mjolnir.

"What, here on the sidewalk or in that building that's being demolished?"

Loki pursed his lips. Thor could have just stayed away and let well enough alone but _noooo_ , he'd had to out him and ruin everything.

He didn't need this. He certainly didn't need to get drawn into another argument with Thor although it was slightly touching that Thor had mourned for him and it had been a pretty dramatic, heroic death if he had anything to say about it.

Their conversation died when a ring of gold spun itself into existence around his feet.

"Loki, what are you doing? Stop that."

It was magic, but it didn't feel Asgardian. "I swear I'm not doing this." Midgard had sorcerers?

The earth opened up and swallowed him and he screamed.

There was nothing but darkness. Pure and absolute. He stopped screaming.

He was still falling.

Loki twisted in the air and tried to find something, a speck of light, anything that could help him get his bearings, but there was nothing. He couldn't even use his magic to teleport himself out or at least turn his fall into levitation.

Something was negating his magic. Which meant he couldn't summon his twin daggers though he always kept a pair in his boots just in case. That didn't bode well. Someone had obviously come after him and they'd known about his magic. An enemy. He had too many to count so it was best to be prepared for anything.

But as he continued to fall, nothing happened. No one emerged from the darkness, nothing challenged him. And he was starting to feel weird. Not exactly sick weird, not yet, more like his blood was rushing backward and his organs were pressed against his spine and he could no longer tell up from down.

Eventually, he became numb to it. And it became the void.

Thor, looking down on him, blue eyes desperate and pleading. Above him, Odin, disappointed.

"I could have done it! For you! For all of us." He'd been so naïve. So young even though it hadn't been very long ago.

"No, Loki." Those two words stung more than Thor's pleas, more than Odin's anger, more even than Odin's revelation - "Laufeyson."

 _No, Loki_. All that he had done and all that he was and all that he tried to be. For nothing. And in that instant, he hadn't cared what happened to him. He'd let go.

He'd let go and he'd drifted away through the void and it had been a _relief_ to not care, to drift until his false brother and his false father had gone from view. A relief when the void took him and remade him until he was nothing.

When Thanos had found him, it had been like a splash of ice cold water, startling but needed.

Loki opened his eyes. He hadn't even realized they'd been closed. It was hard to tell in the darkness. He estimated about fifteen minutes had passed, too much time to be spent falling. Would he ever stop? He would think that he was in the void of space again if not for the fact that, despite the lack of direction, he was definitely _falling_ , so…gravity was a thing. And there was air. And it wasn't very cold though to be fair, it wasn't very warm either.

So what the hell was going on?

It was possible the Avengers were involved. Last he checked, they hadn't had any sorcerers in their ranks, but it had been a while since his last encounter with them. And if there was anyone more against his coming to Earth than the Avengers, he didn't know them.

The thought made him clench his teeth. It wasn't like he'd _wanted_ to come to this primitive cattle pen of a planet. It's not like he'd _asked_ for them to tear down Shady Acres. It wasn't his fault Thor had found him out and forced him back into his true form in front of everyone and if he hadn't, everyone would still be living in blissful, wonderful ignorance serving their benevolent, fair, and wisest of wise kings.

Stupid oaf. It was all his fault. Loki planned on letting the Avengers know just that should they be the ones behind this ridiculous stunt and then he set about planning their demise. Again.

He wished he still had his scepter. It would be so easy then to just turn them all against each other. But no, he'd have to resort to trickery. It might be challenging if his magic didn't come back to him soon, but he could manage it. He could probably turn them against Thor relatively easily once they found out he'd been the one who'd brought Loki to Earth in the first place.

All this thinking and planning and it had only been twenty-five minutes. That was long enough for a nap. And he could have taken one too if he wasn't so busy trying to figure out his predicament.

It occurred to him that whoever was behind this might just leave him here to fall for eternity. It was certainly a creative way of dealing with him and anger furrowed his brow. How _dare_ they, whoever they were? Didn't they know who he was? Scratch that. Of course they knew who he was, that's why they were doing what they were doing.

Loki needed to get out of here. If for nothing more than to get his hands on his tormentor and then they'd be sorry they'd ever messed with him. He grinned at the thought, relishing the image of the sorcerer's surprise, the sound of his pleas - "I shouldn't have done that, I'm sorry, you're much greater and stronger than I am. I throw myself at your mercy!"

There would be no mercy.

First, there needed to be calm. Sure, this void seemed endless, likely with no means of escape, but there had to be _something_. There always was. But it would require concentration to solve this puzzle.

Upon second inspection, he realized his magic was still there, just untouchable. It was this place. Suppressing his power.

Which suggested some sort of force at work and it would take much to dampen an entire endless void. There had to be weak spots he could exploit.

Unless, of course, the endlessness wasn't so vast as it seemed and he was actually stuck in a closed spatial loop in which case the space he was falling through might be no bigger than a house.

In which case, trying to escape would be pointless.

No sooner had he had this thought than a circle of light appeared, ringed by sparking gold and he realized he'd been building momentum for quite some time.

"Oh shi-"

The light grabbed him and he hit the ground with a bone-jarring crack.

The worst thing was that Thor looked completely unperturbed.

"I have been falling for thirty minutes!" Loki gasped and he sprang to his feet but it wasn't the Avengers he faced. Just a man with a stupid goatee and a stupid cape and who the hell did he think he was?

"I think you can handle things from here," the man was saying.

"Handle me? Who are you?" He was seething. His chest hurt, his limbs hurt, his spine hurt, he was still dizzy from falling. He summoned his daggers, only in the action realizing he had his magic back, and he ignored Thor's attempts to calm him. "You think you're some kind of sorcerer? Don't think for one minute, you second-rate -"

The sorcerer waved his hand and another golden ring enveloped him and for the second time that day, Loki fell flat on his face.


End file.
